Homeland Security Gets Data on Arab-Americans
In today's top news articles I found that the homeland security office has received information from the U.S. Census Bureau relating to the population of Arab and Arab-Americans living in the United States.
The U.S. Census Bureau has provided population data on Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security, including their ancestry and the cities and postal areas in which they live, The New York Times reported on Friday.One set of data listed cities with more than 1,000 Arab-Americans. The other, more detailed set, provided ZIP code breakdowns and sorted Arab-Americans by country of origin. The categories were Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, Palestinian, Syrian, "Arab/Arabic" and "Other Arab."
A spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection told the newspaper the requests were made not for law enforcement purposes, but to help identify in which airports to post signs and pamphlets in Arabic to assist travelers.-- (Reuters)
What exactly does homeland security have to do with the boards of travel and tourism of any particular state? That lie just doesn't make any sense.
So, for what reason would the Homeland Security office be wanting a census record of all the Arab-Americans and Arabs that are living in the U.S.?
While the information sharing is legal, so long as the data do not identify individuals, civil liberties and Arab-American groups called it a breach of public trust and likened it to steps taken against Japanese-Americans in World War II, the newspaper said.In 2000, the Census Bureau formally apologized for allowing its data to be used to assist in the locating of Japanese-Americans for internment during World War II.
Could we relive the events of WWII?